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zwang wrote:
> Victor Nakoryakov wrote:
>
>> Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
>>
>>> "zwang" <nehzgnaw@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:d9ej3v$2hpb$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>>
>>>> I myself use D for fast prototyping and small utility programs with
>>>> only a few thousand lines of code. I wonder whether people are
>>>> working on D projects for more serious purposes, for example,
>>>> commercial softwares.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm also writing a 3D game engine. Not really sure what for, as I'm
>>> really not that good at writing games. But it's fun, and it gives me
>>> something to do :)
>>>
>>
>> Hmm, I see D is popular among gamedevers. It's looks like more than
>> 1/5 of D users are gamedevers. I'm use it to write game engine too :).
>>
>> I work in one of Russian gamedev company where I have to work with
>> huge project in C++, I love it but with time it become bigger and
>> bigger cesspit of code. And when I set to D on my spare time, I feel I
>> get into small paradise :).
>>
>>
>
> I don't see why D appeals to game developers.
> The unpredictable pauses of GC are unacceptable, aren't they?
Gc only happens on allocation. Game developers typically use memory
pools for Inner-loop allocating.
I am also doing some OpenGL stuff with D.
-DavidM

zwang wrote:
> Victor Nakoryakov wrote:
>
>> Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
>>
>>> "zwang" <nehzgnaw@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:d9ej3v$2hpb$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>>
>>>> I myself use D for fast prototyping and small utility programs with
>>>> only a few thousand lines of code. I wonder whether people are
>>>> working on D projects for more serious purposes, for example,
>>>> commercial softwares.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm also writing a 3D game engine. Not really sure what for, as I'm
>>> really not that good at writing games. But it's fun, and it gives me
>>> something to do :)
>>>
>>
>> Hmm, I see D is popular among gamedevers. It's looks like more than
>> 1/5 of D users are gamedevers. I'm use it to write game engine too :).
>>
>> I work in one of Russian gamedev company where I have to work with
>> huge project in C++, I love it but with time it become bigger and
>> bigger cesspit of code. And when I set to D on my spare time, I feel I
>> get into small paradise :).
>>
>>
>
> I don't see why D appeals to game developers.
> The unpredictable pauses of GC are unacceptable, aren't they?
Yes, I too thought that that was going to cause problems, but after
actually implimenting my design, my framerates are extrmemly consitent,
moreso than I ever got with a C++ program... And no i can't explain why
my C++ program, with a practicly identical design would lag from time to
time, but it did.
Anyhoo, D is good for game developers I guess, cause it lets complex
things get done fast with less code, and in game development, there are
allot of things, especially object oriented things, that get rather
complex, that D can really simplify.
Its also really good for parsing text, as someone else mentioned, so,
reading in models and such is also easy.
--
Thanks,
Trevor Parscal
www.trevorparscal.com
trevorparscal@hotmail.com

zwang wrote:
>
> I don't see why D appeals to game developers.
> The unpredictable pauses of GC are unacceptable, aren't they?
Memory management is always a concern in games. Every AAA C/C++ engine
on the market includes some form of custom memory management. In D we
get it for free.
As for GC pauses, I've not had a problem with them. Aside from using GC
friendly practices (such as avoiding frequent allocations of small
objects), D gives the option to bypass GC if it does become a problem
that you can't solve with freelists or some such.

"Victor Nakoryakov" <nail-mail@mail.ru> wrote in message
news:d9h5uu$2p6i$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>
> Hmm, I see D is popular among gamedevers. It's looks like more than 1/5 of
> D users are gamedevers.
Yes, this is the impression I got. Perhaps this is because writing games is
a big hobby activity and D is also attractive for hobby use.
I agree that D is a nice language. I'd rather be able to use it instead of
C++. But being a good language is, unfortunately, not enough of a reason for
me to be able to use it for serious work where I'm answerable to other
people. I need to use a language that is also fairly widespread. I think
there is a chicken and egg problem for D (probably as there is for almost
all the lesser-used languages). You cannot use it for serious work until it
is already used by many people in well-known companies creating well-known
products that are selling. It needs to get a critical mass somehow. Until
then, I believe it will be a hobby language.
One minor improvement to the D web site might be if it showed off some
non-trivial sample programs written in D. (Perhaps they would be open source
or perhaps not.) For example, if I go to the wxWidgets site I can see
several examples of programs written with wxWidgets. Right on the front page
is a list of programs like AOL Communicator and Forte Agent. I didn't see
anything like that at the D site, unless I messed it.
Jim